


Slipping

by askalfendilaytonmod



Category: Layton Brothers: Mystery Room
Genre: Abstract, Altered Mental States
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-24
Updated: 2017-08-24
Packaged: 2018-12-19 11:27:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11896776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/askalfendilaytonmod/pseuds/askalfendilaytonmod
Summary: An abstract interpretation of Potty’s struggle to stay alive after Placid begins to emerge.Reposted from my tumblr.





	Slipping

Slipping. He just kept on  _slipping_.

Despite trying his best to climb back up, to break the surface so he could speak, feel, be  _free,_  he couldn’t _._  The most he’d managed to move was a few inches at best, but he quickly found that all he was capable of was gripping the last piece of consciousness he’d managed to salvage. It was petty and desperate, but he felt as though he was clinging on to life itself.

The more tightly he tried to hold on, the harder it was. If he were capable of looking down, he wondered if he’d see an endless, black pit that held all forgotten things. He didn’t want to join those inside it.

Alfendi didn’t understand who he could be forgotten by, but despite himself, he was incredibly afraid of the possibility. He had always been a man who sought answers, and not knowing what fate awaited him caused him to shake uncontrollably.

Was he capable of shaking anymore?

All he’d been able to feel for days, weeks, months was the stabbing pain that washed away everything else. It was the only thing that brought him out of his abstract way of living and reminded him of his own existence, keeping him real and alive. He didn’t know where it was coming from; all he remembered was a gunshot, a shout, and a fall. Perhaps there’d been a woman crying, too.

As he remained motionless, still trying to tighten his grip on existence, he realised how drained he was. He knew it wasn’t just his physical body, which he barely seemed connected to anymore; his mind seemed to be fading away from him, but rather than existing as nothing, he felt something new take presence in the vessel that had once been his body. It was something he could feel, perhaps understand to an extent, but he had no control over this foreign entity.

Finally, the other stirred.

——–

As light came back into his world, Alfendi felt his all too familiar rage tear him apart from the inside when he finally  saw  just what had pushed him aside, what had left him clinging to life rather than living in his own glory.

He saw lies, deception, manipulation. He saw faces fall as he – no, not him, somebody else – tarnished his name, twisted his identity,  _killed_  him.

“I shot Keelan Makepeace.”

_No, I didn’t. I know I didn’t._

“Al, that can’t be tr-“

“Hilda, I’m sorry, I sh-shot him.”

_No, he shot me first! I didn’t even get the chance to give the bastard what he deserved._

“Perhaps we should let him rest before we listen to anything else.”

_Eager to get rid of me so soon, partner?_

“I’m s-sorry. I don’t know what else to say.”

He could only scream as the world dimmed again, and holding on had become that much harder.

———-

He was questioned, and questioned, and questioned and every single time the answers were wrong. He tried his best to stop them before they tumbled out of his mouth, but he failed. The other’s presence continued to grow, pushing him downwards even further.

“Did you shoot Keelan Makepeace.”

“Yes.”

_No!_

“Do you consider it to have been justified self-defense?”

“I… he had a gun.”

 _Yes, and he shot me first._ He was barely able to make this a coherent thought.

“But was he aiming it at you? Did you feel that your life was in immediate danger?”

“I…”

_It was. And it still is._

It was becoming harder to stay awake.

———-

“I’m sorry, Al.”

His physical body snapped to attention at her words. His consciousness – that was what he still was, surely – struggled to find the strength to concentrate on the happenings around him.

“Hilda?”

“I can’t do this. I-I…”

He couldn’t look as she dissolved into tears.

This was the woman who had seen piles of corpses without flinching, who had been faced with criminals at gunpoint nearly every week since she’d joined the force. Together, they’d started every argument under the sun with one another, had screamed until they had no idea what they were screaming about. None of it had fazed her.

“I don’t understand.”

 _Please. Let me speak to her._   _Let me stop her._  The plea went unheard. He was shaking, the tremors loosening his grip.

“You’ve changed, Al. You’re not the man I knew and loved, you’re just…” Her voice broke as she tried to continue, and eventually, she stopped trying. The sounds of her sobbing were the same sounds he’d heard in his moments of darkness. She was in as much agony in that moment, in the face of an intruder, as she had been when he lay on death’s doorstep.

He wondered if the two situations were really so different.

Her life was under constant threat, but it had taken just one person to break Hilda Pertinax. It was a thief, a murderer and a lie that shattered her resolve. Seeing her in this state because of him, because he wasn’t strong enough to fight the one criminal that mattered, sent waves of shame through his body.

Body? Did he have a body?

What _was_  he?

Pain unlike anything he’d experienced before hit his center, and he let out a startled gasp as he felt himself being tugged downwards. The emotions that he’d been trying to suppress, his doubts and fears and confusion, spun around in his mind, their echoes growing louder.

God, they were so loud.

The world faded as he was swept up into a sea of helplessness, unable to keep afloat. Trying to save himself was to no avail. His movements weren’t his any longer; he was  _dying_.

He felt himself slip.

For a second time, he fell.


End file.
